Thursday, March 14, 2013

Reader mail

Let's take some questions from our readers. Here's one:

"Have you given up on blogging already? I thought the kid would have to *be* here first."

Yeah, I know what you're talking about. I haven't been posting as much as I used to. I used to be good for 3 a week, sometimes more, but lately I've been lucky to do two. I don't know, it's not like it's anything on purpose, I just haven't had a lot of good ideas or I haven't felt like it or something.

Like, here are some things I've been thinking about that I haven't turned into a whole post just because they don't seem interesting enough to make a whole post out of:

1. I'm not really crazy about renaming SFO for Harvey Milk, not because I don't think he's an honorable figure who should be celebrated, but because, honestly, I think "Milk International Airport" just doesn't sound good.

2. I loved Ta-Nehisi Coates' post for Atlantic called "How the Quiet Car Explains the World." If you've been with me for a while you already know that when we were Back East we had occasion to use and enjoy the Quiet Car ourselves. And I like his definition of "asshole": "a person who demands that all social interaction happen on their terms." Those people are definitely assholes, but that definition seems a little restrictive. I would expand it to include "people who display no concern about others," to take in people who are assholes but not necessarily in a social context, like your Loud Neighbor Music Blasters, your Don't Pick Up Their Dog's Poopers, your Loud Cellphone Talkers, your Line Cutters, and your Movie Talkers. The list goes on and on. In fact, Coates' definition is subsumed in mine, because Demanding Social Interactors are a subset of People Who Display No Concern About Others.

3. Tomorrow is the Fifth Anniversary of this blog. We've been doing this for FIVE FUCKING YEARS, Jesus Christ. The first post was on March 15, 2008, and was about how I'm sick of SXSW. Allan from MissionMission commented. I'm still sick of SXSW.

3 comments:

1. I kind of agree, but for a different reason. It seems like there is no shortage of Harvey Milk commemorations in SF and the world. There are *two* Harvey Milk schools, for instance. I wonder if SF seems like a one-trick pony if too many of our tributes are to one (obviously deserving) guy. I know at least one person who will disagree.

2. I thought the same thing yesterday. Coates identifies a subset of "asshole," not the whole category.

About Me

TK lives and works in San Francisco. He occasionally travels to places east of the Caldecott Tunnel, but not very often. His interests include bars, reality TV, and irony. Things seem to be going fine.